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Chapter 32: Don’t Like Me

A familiar voice. Jian Li turned around.

Zhou Shubei was standing behind her, though she hadn’t noticed when. In the half-month since they last saw each other, he seemed to have lost some weight. His eye sockets were slightly sunken, and his sharp features had become even more piercing. Jian Li could smell a faint scent of alcohol on him, something light, like the lingering aroma of wine.

“How come you’re here?” Jian Li asked in surprise.

“I called out to you several times, but you didn’t respond.” Zhou Shubei took her wrist and stepped onto the train. “Hold on tight.”

The subway was more crowded than usual on New Year’s Eve. Jian Li stood by the door, holding onto the seat’s rail. Zhou Shubei stood in front of her, his height giving him an obvious advantage. He easily reached the top rail, like a protective wall, keeping her safe inside.

“I didn’t hear you,” she said.

Zhou Shubei lowered his gaze. “Are you not happy?”

Jian Li didn’t want to pass on her negative energy to him. “No, I’m just worried about Cotton Candy being hungry. I didn’t put food in its bowl when I left this morning.”

“It’s not a big deal. It ran out and got hungry for several days before,” Zhou Shubei said.

The subway station was about a hundred meters from the school entrance. Jian Li and Zhou Shubei walked side by side toward the south gate. Most shops in the residential area were closed for the holiday, leaving only a dumpling shop open.

Jian Li stopped. “Do you want dumplings?”

Zhou Shubei raised his eyebrows. “Sure.”

The shop had no other customers. The owner, who was looking at his phone, smiled when he saw Zhou Shubei. “How come you’re here so early this year? Is this your girlfriend?”

“I came back early,” Zhou Shubei turned to Jian Li. “What filling do you want?”

“Pork and corn.”

The shop was small with four or five rectangular wooden tables. The steaming dumplings were served in two bowls, with thin skins and thick fillings, neatly pinched at the edges.

Jian Li took a small bite, still getting the meat.

Zhou Shubei watched her bite the dumpling twice before a crescent-shaped gap appeared. He thought back for a moment and realized she always ate in small bites but quickly, like a rabbit.

Jian Li didn’t know he was watching her, but she was thinking about what the owner had asked earlier—whether she was his girlfriend. He neither confirmed nor denied it.

“Do you often come here?” she asked.

Zhou Shubei replied, “I’ve come every New Year’s Eve for the past two years.”

Jian Li dipped her dumpling in chili sauce, carefully choosing her words. “Aren’t you going home for dinner today?”

“That’s the Zhou family, not my family.” Zhou Shubei’s tone was light. “After my mom died, it wasn’t my home anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, no need to apologize.” Zhou Shubei smiled. “The real culprit doesn’t feel sorry at all.”

As he said this, Jian Li noticed a hint of bitterness in his eyes, as though the hatred had accumulated for too long and finally found an opportunity to pour out. She remembered the rumors she had seen online.

The wealthy families’ stories were often exposed more than those in the entertainment industry. Zhou Shubei’s grandfather, Zhou Zhenhong, had founded the family business, which was now run by his father, Zhou Chuanbai. Zhou Shubei also had two older brothers, Zhou Yangzhi and Zhou Jingyuan, who were born to Zhou Chuanbai’s current wife, Cheng Lanru. Zhou Shubei’s mother had been his father’s first wife, but she had tragically died in a stage accident.

This information wasn’t hard to piece together into a story.

Before Zhou Shubei was born, his father had already been unfaithful, fathering two sons. Not long after his mother’s death, the three others moved into the Zhou family, and Zhou Shubei was sent to live with his grandmother. After his grandmother passed away and no one was left to care for him, he was brought back.

He was flamboyant, carefree, and confident, but also more mature and steady than others his age. It seemed like he knew everything, but this was only a third of who he was. Under that polished exterior, there was loneliness.

Jian Li’s eyes felt dry, and she wanted to say something to comfort him, but she wasn’t good at it and feared saying something that might hurt him.

“Don’t pity me.” Zhou Shubei looked at her. “I don’t need it.”

“I’m not pitying you, because I’m not much better off than you.” Jian Li opened up her own wounds. “I’m a daughter.”

The four words felt like they had been chained, tearing open the wounds from her past.

“Since my mom was pregnant with me, no one liked me. When I was still in her belly, my parents fought. My dad pushed my mom down the stairs, thinking he would make her miscarry, but I survived.”

These were things Zhang Wenxiu had told her. When she first heard it, she was too young to fully understand. She only vaguely felt that Jian Zhiguo didn’t like her, but sometimes he would hug her, comfort her, or buy her food, and she thought maybe it was just her imagination. As she grew older and her brother Jian Yunjie was born, that feeling was put right in front of her, cruelly telling her that she wasn’t mistaken. They really didn’t love her.

“My dad liked to drink. When he came home drunk, he would beat my mom. Every time he did that, my mom would say, if it weren’t for me, she would have divorced him long ago. I felt like it was my fault. I shouldn’t have been born. I was holding her back, making her live this life. I wanted to help her. So the next time my dad hit my mom, I ran out to stop him, and then I became the target for his anger.”

Even after all these years, she still remembered clearly the look on Jian Zhiguo’s face when he hit her, the harsh words. She curled up on the floor, clutching her head, crying and trying to get the neighbors’ attention to stop it, but in the chaos, she looked up and saw Zhang Wenxiu, holding Jian Yunjie, standing far away, watching her with a smile.

“Since I was ten, I knew no one liked me, no matter how hard I studied or tried to be a good child. They still didn’t like me.” Jian Li tightened her grip on her chopsticks, as though holding on to the only straw in the world, exposing her bloody wounds. “I ran to North City.”

Zhou Shubei’s eyebrows furrowed. “Ran?”

“Yeah, they wanted me to study education so I could find a job after graduation, an easy way to find a good husband. One day, they even brought someone over to pick a husband for me. They’d already agreed on the dowry.”

Jian Li smiled, though her eyes were burning with unshed tears. “Fifty thousand yuan, buying my future.”

The owner was watching TV in the back room, and the cold wind kept blowing in, stabbing at the white walls like a dull knife. The dumplings were now mostly cold, and Jian Li smiled lightly, though she felt like her heart was breaking. “I thought I’d starve to death in North City, but I didn’t. You helped me with my problems, so I don’t pity you. I’m grateful. If we’re talking about legends, maybe you’re my savior.”

Zhou Shubei felt as if a heavy stone had been thrown onto his chest, weighing him down. It was hard to describe. For the first time, he felt like he had done something that was not quite humane—comforting her by peeling away her past, telling her what an important thing he had done, how irreplaceable he was in her life.

Zhou Shubei felt like his eyes were stinging from the cold wind, like he hadn’t closed them for hours. He wasn’t completely unaware of what was happening. From childhood to now, he had been confessed to countless times. He knew exactly what those words and glances meant. Jian Li’s eyes when she looked at him, the way she spoke to him, he could feel she liked him, but he pretended not to know and didn’t want to confront it, curious to see what her intentions were.

But she wanted nothing, was sincere and careful.

She knew he was in a bad mood, so she made up excuses to race with him, played games with him, told jokes to make him laugh, prepared birthday gifts for him in all kinds of weather, afraid he’d get hurt, carried him all the way, noticed his tired eyes, and put a steam eye mask inside. She made balloon animals on the mountain, prepared sky lanterns to cheer him up.

Zhou Shubei cleared his throat, took a sip of water, and then poured himself another cup.

After a while, he finally spoke, “I’m not as good as you think. I did all these things for my own reasons.”

Jian Li smiled lightly, “It doesn’t matter why, you really helped me.”

Zhou Shubei looked at the smile that curved her eyes. His throat tightened, and he couldn’t utter a word.

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